US could kill me: Argentina’s President Kirchner

Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner on Tuesday charged in an emotional address that domestic and US interests were pushing to topple her government, and could even kill her.
Domestic business interests “are trying to bring down the government, with international (US) help,” she said.

Kirchner said that on her recent visit to fellow Argentine Pope Francis — whose help she has sought in Argentina’s ongoing debt default row — police warned her about supposed plots against her by ISIL activists.

“So, if something happens to me, don’t look to the Mideast, look north” to the United States, Kirchner said at Government House.

Don’t believe US: Kirchner

Just hours after the US embassy here warned its citizens to take extra safety precautions in Argentina, an aggravated Kirchner said “when you see what has been coming out of diplomatic offices, they had better not come in here and try to sell some tall tale about ISIS trying to track me down so they can kill me.”

Argentina is still struggling with the aftermath of a default on nearly $100 billion in debt in 2001, with the two hedge funds it labels vultures battling the country in US courts.

But it has been blocked by US federal judge Thomas Griesa, who has ordered the country to first repay two hedge funds demanding the full $1.3 billion face value of their bonds.

Griesa ruled Monday that Argentina was in contempt of court after it passed a law allowing the government to repay creditors in Buenos Aires or Paris — skirting the New York judge’s freeze on the bank accounts it previously used to service its debt.

More than 92 percent of its creditors agreed to take losses of up to 70 percent on the face value of their bonds in 2005 and 2010 to get the struggling country’s debt repayments back on track.

But the two hedge funds, US billionaire Paul Singer’s NML Capital and US-based Aurelius Capital Management, which had bought up defaulted Argentine bonds for pennies on the dollar, refused to accept the write-down and took the country to court.

The strategy, which stands to make them profits of up to 1,600 percent, has earned them the label “vulture funds” from Buenos Aires.

Blocked from paying its restructured debt, Argentina missed a $539 million interest payment and entered default again on July 30.